On a regular basis we do a series of posts labeled, “By The Numbers.” In these posts we look at real life numbers and discuss them relative to the fantasies, lies, incompetence, and stupidity of the American political class. As we have always said, “politicians lie but the numbers do not.”
A note before we begin: this blog post practically wrote itself given the stupidity and insanity of the current Democratic Party nominee for mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani. His views and plans for the city and its residents if elected will surely result in chaos, rampaging crime and exodus from the city. His ignorance of basic economics and human nature is astounding.
Let’s start with Mamdani’s view of the world and what he thinks of others:
He is anti-Israel and anti-Jewish.
He does not like the New York City Police Department and is a “defund the police” advocate.
He wants lenient sentencing and no cash bail for criminals in the city.
He wants to raise the minimum wage to $30 in the city.
He wants to provide free child care, free bus transportation, and free health care for city residents.
He wants the city government to develop and operate grocery stores in the city.
He wants to pay for all of these free services and perks by increasing the taxation of people living in “wealthy white neighborhoods” and city businesses.
He wants to freeze rents.
He wants to become the biggest sanctuary city in the country for illegal immigrants.
He wants to destroy the Constitution by completely voiding the Second Amendment.
Again, his economic and human nature ignorance is astounding. We could go through each one of these points and point out the dire consequences to the city’s financials and citizen safety but that is time for another post. Today we look at the numbers only and how the above ideas will make a bad situation worse.
Let’s start with some recent New York City statistics:
In the middle of the year 2020, the population of New York City was about 8.8 million people.
According to the latest available population statistics, the current population of the city is 8.26 million people.
This is roughly equivalent to the city of Baltimore and its entire half a million population moving out of New York City.
Thus, in a few short years, the city lost over half a million residents, about 6% of its residential population and probably about the same amount of its business tax base.
Between July, 2022 and July, 2023, about 78,000 residents moved out of the state, or about 214 residents, on average, moved out of the state in that one year EVERY DAY.
According to news reports, as of the middle of 2023, 158 Wall Street businesses had left the city, taking almost a trillion dollars of managed assets with them.
One has to assume that many smaller businesses also left the city during the past few years also, taking their taxable assets with them.
Two conclusions from these numbers: First, due to a higher and higher taxation burden, over regulation, failing schools, and high crime rates, many residents and businesses have already had enough and are taking their tax dollars elsewhere where the quality of life and financial burden is less.
Second, once this trend is underway, the out migration of residents and businesses, it is very difficult to stop since the mindset of those that have left and those that have watched the out migration from afar now believe that the city is not a worthwhile place to live and do business.
Let’s explore another set of numbers relative the ultra wealthy that live in “wealthy white neighborhoods,” the people most likely to take the brunt of Mamdani’s tax the rich strategy:
There are 123 billionaires living in New York City.
The total net worth of those 123 billionaires is estimated at $759 billion.
However, the top five wealthiest billionaires in the city are worth about $277 billion so if they take their wealth out of the city like thousands of others before them then he is left with only $482 billion left with the remaining billionaires, assuming they do not leave also.
If Mamdani taxes their WEALTH at 1% of their total WEALTH, then each resident of the city could theoretically get about $580 per person.
That translates to about $11 a week, or about $1.60 a day, not enough for a Starbucks stopover.
And they would probably not get that much since this example is a 1% tax on WEALTH, not INCOME, which means that $1.60 would be lowered even further.
But consider some numbers from the billionaires living in NYC:
Michael Bloomberg is the richest of the billionaires with an estimated total wealth of $105 billion.
Let’s assume and take a wild guess that his home in the city is worth, say, $10 million.
Thus, his home is worth about .9% of his total wealth, not 9%, .9%.
He could very easily donate his home to a charity, get a huge charity donation tax deduction and be living in Miami very quickly without a major hit to his financial situation and not have to pay the current and increased Mamdani white neighborhood additional city taxes.
Even Rupert Murdoch, only the fifth wealthiest billionaire at about $21 billion could escape from New York with minimal financial hit since if he was living in a $10 million city home, that would be less than 5% of his total wealth.
Again, he could donate his home to charity, take the tax deduction, and move to get out from current and future Mamdani tax burdens.
The wealthy can leave New York quite easily without a major financial hit, something that cannot be said of the city government.
The numbers show that taxing the wealthy white folks would not translate to very much per every other New York City resident but would likely drive many of these white wealthy folks out of the city, further reducing the tax base lower than what it is today.
So in summary of the numbers:
The multi-year out migration trend continues to be steep for city residents.
Billionaires and millionaires are likely to continue to leave the city if Mamdani raises taxes on these folks even more.
Jewish folks are likely to accelerate their exodus, given the anti-Israel and anti-Jewish views of Mamdani.
Law-abiding folks are likely to accelerate their exodus, given the anti-police and pro-criminal views of Mamdani.
Businesses are likely to accelerate their exodus, given that they could not afford the $30 minimum wage Mamdani would impose.
Supermarkets are likely to accelerate their exodus, given that Mamdani’s city government-run grocery stores would undercut the prices and profits of real grocery stores.
Rental property owners are likely to accelerate their exodus, given that Mamdani will not let them raise rents to be profitable and take care of and provide maintenance to their properties.
You get it, the numbers are pretty stark. No way that he can maintain the current tax base, never mind milking the current base for incremental taxes for his fantasies listed above. Again, his economic and human nature ignorance is amazing.
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If you agree that we need to deseat every member of Congress for their lack of success and accomplishment, then please consider going to the following petition link to help the cause:
https://www.change.org/p/deseat-congress-reset-freedom
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